1. Field of the invention
The invention relates generally to instruction in the fields of reading, phonics, and spelling. More particularly, the invention relates to the teaching of a set of sound symbols as an aid to instruction in these fields.
2. Prior art
Written English is an alphabetic language. Every distinct language sound, or phoneme, in the oral form of a word has an identifiable connection with a letter or letter group in its written form. This is the alphabetic principle.
For the beginning reader to acquire the skill of decoding, of puzzling out new words in written English, he must have a working understanding of the alphabetic principle. This entails not only learning how the sounds of the language are represented graphically, but also learning now these sounds exists in oral language. This is not a trivial skill. In Becoming a Nation of Readers, the report of the Commission on Reading, 1985, on page 40 it is stated that. "There is evidence that many young children cannot extract an individual sound from hearing it within a word."
Typically, the pre-literate child has no concept of "phonemic segmentation"--the skill of recognizing individual language sounds within the oral form of a word. He does not know that oral language consists of a sequence of sounds, or that these sounds exist individually.
If the student is to realize that these sounds exist, then he must be given a way of referring to them. In classic phonics this is done by attaching each sound to both a graphic symbol, to represent the sound, and to a picture word which presents the sound as a part of his oral language. The picture word is then connected graphically with the symbol. For example, the word "boot" might be used to provide an example of the sound associated with the letter "b". The student is encouraged to hear the sound at the beginning of the word, and to see a drawing of a boot as being similar to the letter form of "b".
It is not a simple task for the child to associate the graphic form of a letter with the sound that it represents, unless a meaningful connection can be made between the two. The picture word provides the student with this meaningful connection, but for the student to understand it, he must already have acquired the skill of phonemic segmentation. Thus, this approach requires of the student a certain proficiency with language sounds if he is to see a meaningful connection to the symbols which represent them.
It is difficult for the literate adult to understand the trouble that a child can have in identifying the first sound in a word. The adult already has an adequate means for representing sound. With this means, it seems obvious that the first sound in "boot" is the sound associated with "b." There are situations, though, where these tools can't be applied. Each alphabet letter name, for example, contains a vowel sound, but it is not always an easy task to separate this sound or to identify it. For example it is less than obvious that the vowel sound that exists at the beginning of the letter name of "r" is the same vowel sound that is found in the middle of the word "not." Naturally, isolating a sound is a much more difficult task for the pre-literate child than it is for the adult who has a vast amount of experience with phonemic segmentation.
There are programs which teach sound symbols without using the skill of phonemic segmentation, but this is only achieved by using symbols which have no connection at all with the sounds they represent. It may be difficult for the child to associate the letter form of "b" with a picture of a boot, but this must be easy compared to associating a comma with the schwa sound, as one approach listed below does.
There is no existing method which teaches the pre-literate student a meaningful association of graphic symbols to the sounds of a language without requiring the skill of phonemic segmentation. Prior art in methods of instruction in reading which involve the teaching of a set of sound symbols falls into two categories:
Firstly, methods of instruction in the teaching of sound symbols which require the skill of phonemic segmentation:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,007,548 discloses a system similar to classic phonics. In this case, the pictures are not used to associate a sound with a given alphabet letter, but are used to indicate sound directly. Thus a simple drawing of an apple is used to represent the short "a" sound.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,115,932 discloses a method of associating vowel sounds with colors to aid in recognizing the sound that is represented by a letter. In this method, the sound usually represented as "oi" is denoted by the color turquoise, since the name of the color contains the sound.
In 1982 IBM introduced the "Writing to Read" system, developed by John Henry Martin. This system teaches the student a set of letters and digraphs to represent the majority of sounds in English. Each letter or digraph is associated with a picture word to provide a connection to the sound.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,891 discloses a method of teaching the association of alphabet letters with the sounds they commonly represent by conceptually connecting each letter with a part of the body. The method uses phrases such as "i is for my intestines" along with diagrams of the body to make a meaningful connection.
Secondly, methods in which arbitrary associations must be made in order to understand the graphic representation of sound:
In 1964, Edward Fry introduced the Diacritical Marking System, which uses standard typewriter symbols to indicate the pronunciation of letters within a word. The student is taught that an "a" with a comma above it represents the schwa sound, and an "a" with a caret above it represents the short "o" sound.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,426,451 discloses a system in which changes in the shading of a type font indicate the pronunciation given to a letter. The student is taught that a light "a" represents the short sound of "a", a bold "a" represents the long sound, and an "a" formed of dots is silent.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,571,951 discloses a system of using color and texture to indicate sound. The student is taught that the long "e" sound is associated with a letter form that is green with a "prickled" texture, and the long "a" sound is indicated by a letter form that is yellow with a "silky" texture.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,715,812 discloses a method of using color to represent sound. The system encompases a total of eighty color-letter form combinations, and uses color to associate the pronunciation of one letter with another, rather than directly to sound. The student is taught that a blue "f" represents the sound usually associated with "f", and a green "f" represents the sound usually associated with "v".
U.S. Pat. No. 4,193,212 discloses a method of using diacritical marks to indicate the sound associated with a letter which is similar to that used by Fry. In this case, marks not available on the typewriter are used.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,431 discloses a method of using color to indicate the character of consonant and vowel sounds. The coloring of a letter indicates whether a consonant is voiced or unvoiced, hard or soft, and whether a vowel is short or long.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,199 discloses a system in which color represents sound directly. The student is taught that a color represented in the patent as "bright dark yellow" is associated with the long sound of "i", and that dark blue is associated with the long sound of "e".